The B.C. government hardened its stance in the debate over the controversial Northern Gateway Pipeline on Wednesday, using a late-afternoon news release to fire a direct shot at Enbridge.

“The responses from Enbridge/Northern Gateway to cross-examination by our legal counsel are too often incomplete and lacking in commitment,” said the statement from Environment Minister Terry Lake after a day of pipeline hearings in Prince George.

“Their answers suggest that the company is not taking the very real concerns of British Columbians seriously.”

Wednesday’s hearings focused on leak detection along the planned pipeline, with a lawyer from the province noting that the ability to detect leaks won’t be known until the pipeline is built and pumping oil through the remote wilderness of northern British Columbia.

Premier Christy Clark’s government, which originally avoided taking sides in the pipeline debate, has become increasingly involved in the last few months.

Over the summer, Clark laid out five elements her government says it needs before it will consider a heavy oil pipeline, and Clark has met with Alberta Premier Alison Redford over getting a greater share of the economic benefits.

But until now, she has not waded directly into the details of the debate, and has refused to meet with officials from Enbridge over the project, saying it would be inappropriate to do so until the review is complete.

In his statement Wednesday, on the second day of environmental assessment hearings in Prince George, Lake took aim at Enbridge for not committing to key elements, such as enhanced leak detection systems or an automatic shutdown.

“One thing that is crystal clear after the last two days is that Enbridge/Northern Gateway is putting off making commitments about including these systems in the pipeline design until after they get approval to proceed,” Lake said.

“We believe that the only way to protect British Columbia’s interests is to ensure that these commitments are made up front, so that everyone will understand how they intend to run this project.”

New Democratic Party leader Adrian Dix, who opposes the Northern Gateway pipeline, said he believes Wednesday’s comments are all about politics.

“What we’ve had now for really a couple of years is a government that hasn’t been serious about its approach, and B.C. has paid the price for that,” he said in an interview after the government statement was released.

“Now, late in the day, having finally heard what British Columbians had to say, the government is playing catch-up,” he said, adding he thinks the tactic will not play well.

“I think what people in B.C. want are serious, well-considered positions, not positions that change every day based on the Liberal party’s latest polling,” he said. “What we’ve had from the Liberal party, sadly, is principally theatrics,” he added.

“They want to be on all sides of this question. I appreciate their political desire to do that, but I think what people want is a government that is clear and straight with them about important issues.”

The government news release comes a day after former B.C. energy minister, and now Conservative senator, Richard Neufeld, questioned whether the project will ever go ahead.

In an interview, Neufeld said Enbridge has so badly mismanaged the $6-billion project that he questions whether the Calgary company has the public credibility to proceed even if the National Energy Board approves the application next year.

“I just think Enbridge has left such a sour taste in most peoples’ mouths.”

During Wednesday’s hearing, lawyer Chris Jones, acting for the B.C. government, focused on the company’s ability to detect leaks along the pipeline.

“So is what you’re telling me that the actual sensitivity of a pipeline — perhaps this pipeline, along with other ones — can only be determined when it’s actually been constructed and you’re able to test that actual pipeline in operation?” he asked.

Responded Barry Callele, director of pipeline control systems and leak detection for Enbridge Pipelines Inc.: “We have a quite an operating history.... It’s not an issue of trust us, wait ‘til construction.”

Testing is and has been underway, Callele said, and test results show the estimates provided in the project proposal are conservative.

Said Jones: “But I guess the answer to my question is still: ‘We don’t know until it’s been built.’ Isn’t that right?”

Callele responded: “I think we know what we know today. We’ll know more at every phase along the pipeline construction project and we’ll know emphatically or empirically at the time that fluid withdrawal tests are done at different sections of the pipeline.”

Callele said there would be five overlapping leak detection systems on the twin pipelines that would carry diluted bitumen to the tanker port in Kitimat and condensate from Kitimat back to Bruderheim, Alta., including aerial surveillance, foot patrols, and 132 monitored pressure valves along the route.

“We will have one of the best instrumented pipeline systems not only in North America, but probably the world,” Callele told the panel.

Jones noted that U.S. data indicate there were 31 leaks from Enbridge pipelines in that country since 2002, and six of the 10 largest spills by volume in that time were from Enbridge pipelines. Of those six, none were detected by Enbridge leak detection systems, Jones said.

Specifically, Jones raised questions about the pipeline’s design and about spills along Enbridge pipelines in the Northwest Territories and one in the Kalamazoo River in Michigan — a massive spill that took two years and almost $800 million to clean up.

“Enbridge has admitted that procedural violations occurred during the Marshall incident,” Callele said, referring to the Michigan spill. He said procedural and “cultural” changes have been implemented since then.

John Carruthers, president of Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipelines, said outside the hearings that people have concerns about whether the pipeline can be built and operated safely, and the questions being raised in the hearing room are “very legitimate.” But Northern Gateway is a state-of-the-art system, he said. “Whatever industrial activity you have, it has some element of risk.”

“The real key is to try to get that as low as possible. In our case, we’re trying to get that to zero. So that’s the direction you’re going and you try to do the best you can with processes, with people and with technology.”

His sentiments were echoed 800 kilometres away at a conference on pipeline safety organized by the B.C. Chamber of Commerce in Vancouver.

Ziad Saad, a vice-president of the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, said data collected from members show there have been about three spills annually for the past decade.

“Clearly 2009 and 2011 have not been our best years, but overall the decade is much better (than) the decade prior, so overall pipelines are getting safer,” he told attendees.

“We know the public has high expectations and we have high expectations of ourselves, so our goal is zero incidents,” he added. “We don’t pretend that we are here today at zero incidents and we don’t pretend that we’re going to be there next year.

“But that remains the goal. Period.”

Janet Holder, an executive vice-president at Enbridge, told the Vancouver meeting the technology to detect leaks has continued to evolve, especially over the last five years.

“There’s new technologies we’re testing actually as we speak that will find a tiny pinhole leak in a pipeline that cannot be possibly found before,” she said.

“We work very closely with companies like GE to develop new technologies and new ways to ensure the health of the pipelines.”

The conference also heard that tanker traffic off British Columbia’s coast will increase dramatically if Northern Gateway and a proposed Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion go ahead.

The number of tankers plying the coast would rise from 100 at present to 550, said Jonathan Whitworth, CEO of Seaspan and a representative of Canadian companies involved in coastal marine transportation, ship escorts and ship repair.

“I understand, that’s a significant jump,” he said.

But he noted some 600 commercial vessels move each day through the Strait of Dover, in the English Channel, and about 22,000 tankers traverse the Singapore Strait.

“That’s a super highway and those super highways today are extremely safe,” he said, noting the picture has much improved since the 1970s.

“I do believe tankers can safely navigate the world, we’ve seen it right here in Vancouver and I know that it can be done for many years to come.”

Saad said oil companies in Canada abide by the best codes and standards for pipeline design, construction and operation in the world, but the industry has fallen down on transparency.

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